Dr. Lodi-Smith
I grew up in Charlottesville and Richmond, Virginia and completed a psychology and philosophy double major as well as a M.A. in experimental psychology at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. From there I went to the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign for my Ph.D. in personality psychology followed by a post-doc at the Center for Vital Longevity at the University of Texas at Dallas where I directed an intervention research program designed to promote healthy neurocognitive aging by teaching older adults how to quilt and do digital photography!
My teaching interests include personality psychology, developmental psychology, psychology of aging, psychology of religion, and psychobiography. One of my goals as a professor is to prepare students for life in graduate school and give them the best skills possible. Because of this, as a student in my upper level classes, you won’t spend a lot of time reading a textbook. Instead, I’ll talk about what a textbook would tell you while you read primary source peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. This helps you learn more about some of the latest research as well as citation classics in the field while honing skills in the critical evaluation of research. In addition, a large part of my teaching has a strong focus on quantitative and methodological training. That said, I am the daughter of a storyteller and I have a passion for what people’s stories can tell us about them and about the validity of science theory. I try to merge the quantitative and the qualitative in both my teaching and in my research to gain a holistic picture of individual identity.
My program of research focuses on the patterns, mechanisms, and outcomes of identity change across the lifespan. This research encompasses many different domains and generally can be categorized as basic research (typically correlational/longitudinal studies of lifespan samples), meta-analysis (quantitative reviews of existing literature), narrative research (using the stories people tell about their lives or events in their lives to enhance the findings of other areas of research), and applied research (how real world experiences impact identity development and examining how basic research can inform things that happen in the real world). You can find out about current projects and opportunities to get involved in this research at the student research wiki page.
Outside of the office, the most important thing to me is my family. I have a fantastic husband, a wonderful son, and a very supportive and fun extended family. We are all very active and try to be outdoors as much as possible running, riding horses, or just going to a park or on a walk.
